As Tibetans rioted, the police fled
By Jim Yardley
Monday, March 24, 2008

BEIJING: In the chaotic hours after Lhasa erupted March 14, Tibetans rampaged through the city's old quarter, waving steel scabbards and burning or looting Chinese shops.

Clothes, souvenirs and other tourist trinkets were dumped outside and set afire as thick gray smoke darkened the midday sky. Tibetan fury, uncorked, boiled over.

Foreigners and Lhasa residents who witnessed the violence said they were stunned by what they saw, and by what they did not see: the police. Riot police officers fled after an initial skirmish and then were often nowhere to be found. Some Chinese shopkeepers begged for protection.

"The whole day I didn't see a single police officer or soldier," said an American woman who spent hours navigating the riot scene.

"The Tibetans were just running free."

Lhasa is now occupied by thousands of paramilitary police officers and troops of the People's Liberation Army. But witnesses say that for almost 24 hours, paramilitary police officers seemed unexpectedly paralyzed or unprepared, despite days of rising tensions with Tibetan monks. The absence of the police emboldened the Tibetan crowds, who terrorized Chinese residents, toppled fire trucks and hurled stones into Chinese-owned shops. In turn, escalating violent unrest touched off a sweeping crackdown and provided fodder for a propaganda-fueled nationalist backlash against Tibetans across the rest of China that is still under way.

"I really am surprised at the speed with which these things got out of control," said Murray Scot Tanner, a China analyst with a specialty in policing. "This place, this time, should not have surprised them. This is one of the key cities in the country that they have tried to keep a lid on for two decades."

What happened? Analysts said they wonder if the authorities, possibly fearing the public relations ramifications of a confrontation before the Beijing Olympics, told the police to avoid engaging protesters without high-level approval.

Timing also may have contributed to indecision; Tibet's hard-line Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, and other top officials were attending the National People's Congress in Beijing when the violence erupted.

The full explanation could take years to emerge from China's secretive Communist Party hierarchy. But the Lhasa unrest, not entirely unlike the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests of 1989, may be remembered as much for poor police work - faulty crowd control and political indecision followed by a massive response - as for the underlying grievances of protesters.

Lhasa now has created far more than a public relations problem for Beijing. It has unleashed widespread Tibetan resentment over Chinese rule. Other anti-government demonstrations have spread to Tibetan areas of western China. Military convoys and trucks of paramilitary police officers are streaming westward to quell the protests.

International leaders are alarmed at the continuing violence and have called on China to exercise restraint.

But domestic opinion is inflamed with nationalist anger, as state television is repeatedly showing images of Tibetans rioting in those early, unfettered hours.

"Our government should take a bloody suppression on these separatists!" blared one person among the legion of enraged postings on Chinese Internet chat rooms. "We cannot hesitate or be too merciful, even at the cost of giving up the Olympics."

The police hesitation did not last long. The crackdown began within 24 hours, on March 15. Multiple witnesses described hearing the thud of tear gas projectiles and the crackle of gunshots as paramilitary police officers and possibly soldiers gradually took control of the riot area.

By March 16, paramilitary police officers were searching Tibetan neighborhoods and dragging away suspects. One foreigner said he saw four Tibetan men beaten so savagely that the police sprinkled white powder on the ground to cover the blood.

Lhasa's death toll remains sharply disputed. Chinese authorities say 18 people died, including a police officer killed by a mob and shopkeepers who burned to death in the violence. The authorities also claim security forces did not carry lethal weapons or fire a shot. But the Tibetan government-in-exile, in Dharamsala, India, said at least 80 Tibetans have died in Lhasa.

Foreign journalists are now forbidden to enter Tibet. But interviews with more than 20 witnesses show that Lhasa was boiling with Tibetan resentment even as the authorities believed they had the situation under control.

Protests broke out at three monasteries beginning March 10, the anniversary of the failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, which forced the Dalai Lama to flee to India. The police arrested more than 60 monks and confined the rest inside their monasteries.

Tibetans say the police also beat monks during peaceful demonstrations.

James Miles, a Beijing-based reporter for The Economist magazine, had gotten a reporting trip to Lhasa approved by authorities before the demonstrations. When the protests started, Miles wondered if he would be notified that his trip had been canceled. But no call came. He arrived March 12, and on March 13 officials took him to dinner, signaling their confidence by making no attempt to hide the recent demonstrations.

"I was assured that the situation in Lhasa was stable," Miles recalled.

But the next day, March 14, would prove otherwise. At Ramoche Temple, monks left the monastery about midday to protest and were immediately met by the police. Unlike the other monasteries, Ramoche is in the heart of Lhasa's old Tibetan quarter, so the confrontation attracted a large crowd.

Unconfirmed reports about the earlier protests had been swirling among Tibetans for days, according to several people, including that monks and Buddhist nuns had been killed. Many Tibetans were angry when they saw the police clash with the Ramoche monks. Quickly, the crowd attacked the police.

Witnesses say police reinforcements who arrived with shields and riot gear were overwhelmed. "Almost immediately they were rushed by a massive group of Tibetans," said one witness. Police officers fled, and a mob of Tibetans poured out of the old quarter onto Beijing Road, a large commercial street. A riot had begun.

Angry Tibetans attacked a branch of the Bank of China and burned it to a blackened husk. Photographs and video images show Tibetan men smashing Chinese shops with stones and setting them on fire. Witnesses described Tibetans attacking Chinese on bicycles and throwing rocks at taxis driven by Chinese. Later, crowds also burned shops owned by Muslims.

"This wasn't organized, but it was very clear that they wanted the Chinese out," said the American woman who witnessed the riots, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals. She said Tibetan grievances exploded in anger. Crowds tied ceremonial silk scarves across the threshold of Tibetan shops to indicate they should not be damaged.

Miles, the journalist, found himself the only Western reporter on the scene. He spent the next several hours carefully walking around the old Tibetan quarter as rioters burned buildings and overturned cars. "I was looking around expecting an immediate, rapid response," he said. "But nothing happened. I kept asking people, 'Where are the police?' "

Protests are common in China and clashes can occur between demonstrators and the police. Beginning in the early 1980s China created a paramilitary force, known as the People's Armed Police, to deal with domestic unrest and other crises. Tanner, the specialist in Chinese policing, said the People's Armed Police had developed tactics over the years to defuse protests without resorting to violent crackdowns.

But riots of this scale are rare, and if violence erupts, policy dictates a firm response, Tanner said.

"There is no suggestion that they are supposed to sit back and let a riot burn itself out," Tanner said.

Tibetans also say the security forces were unusually passive. One monk reached by telephone said other monks noticed that several officers, including some undercover, were more interested in shooting video of the violence than stopping it. "They were just watching," the monk said.

Ultimately, the man responsible for public order in Lhasa is Zhang, Tibet's party chief. Zhang is a protege of President Hu Jintao, who saw his own political career take flight after he crushed the last major rebellion in Tibet in 1989. According to one biographer, Hu actually made himself unavailable during the 1989 riots when paramilitary police officers needed guidance on whether to crack down. The police did so and Hu got credit for keeping order, but he also assured himself deniability if the crackdown had failed, the biographer wrote.

Zhang also has an excuse; he was attending the National People's Congress in Beijing. When the violence started, Zhang had just completed a live, two-hour online discussion about China's Supreme Court, according to a government Web site. It is unclear when Zhang was contacted about the violence, or if he made the final decision on how to respond.

But that decision became clear on Saturday, March 15, the day after the riots. Overnight, the People's Armed Police had created a perimeter encircling the riot areas. Armed vehicles also were in position. By the afternoon, witnesses saw small teams of paramilitary officers armed with high-powered weapons moving into the old quarter.

The Chinese authorities have also confirmed that army troops had arrived in Lhasa by March 15, but say their role was limited to traffic control and securing military property. But many people also wonder if some of those troops were involved in the crackdown. Several armored vehicles had their license plates removed or covered in white paper. Miles noticed that many of the People's Armed Police officers actually appeared to be wearing irregular uniforms. Witnesses reported hearing the sounds of gunshots throughout that Saturday afternoon.

The crackdown was only one part of the new strategy. The Chinese news media initially had not been allowed to cover the Lhasa violence.

But by March 15, that had changed. There, broadcast on state television, was video of Tibetans raging through Lhasa.

Zhang Jing, Huang Yuanxi and Chen Yang contributed research.

Notes: